Economic History Society Annual Conference 28 – 30 March 2014 New Researchers’ Session II IIC: Business Practices

The principal-agent problem revisited: supercargoes and commanders of the China trade Meike Fellinger (University of Warwick) m.fellinger@warwick.ac.uk SEIC catalogue.1742. Twitter use welcome

Part I: Historiographical background Part II: Case study on Charles Irvine Conclusions

Charles Irvine of Drum (1693-1771) Born and died in Aberdeen After 1715 Jacobite exile in France Merchant in Rouen in the 1720s Entered the Indies Trade via the Ostend Company Between 1733-46 made six voyages as supercargo for the SEIC Became major wholesale merchant and tea smuggler

Thank you for your attention! The research for this presentation was generously funded by the European Research Council Advanced Grant Scheme If you have any further questions, please contact: m.fellinger@warwick.ac.uk

Swedish East India Company ship Three Crowns 1736/37

Private commissions Model in ivory of a Chinese pleasure barge, mid-eighteenth-century, at Osterley Park. Copyright: NTPL/Dennis Gilbert.

Armorial and other custom-made Chinese porcelain, reverse mirror paintings